


The Things We Left Behind

by althusserarien (ArmchairElvis)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:46:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmchairElvis/pseuds/althusserarien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Of course I remember," House says. There's no way he could forget.</i> Four ficlets from House's backstory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://shutterbug-12.livejournal.com/profile)[**shutterbug_12**](http://shutterbug-12.livejournal.com/), [](http://topaz-eyes.livejournal.com/profile)[**topaz_eyes**](http://topaz-eyes.livejournal.com/) and [](http://blackmare.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://blackmare.livejournal.com/)**blackmare** for input. Originally posted to LiveJournal on 04/06/2009.

His eyes are closed. Everything is warmth and the clean, almost-acrid smell of the soap, the diffuse red glow of the light through his eyelids.

He can hear the basin filling with water and the radio murmuring in the kitchen, but that's all. It's almost... yeah, it's relaxing.

"Why are we doing this, again?"

"Because it's fun," she says, and then she shooshes him. He feels the light, cool touch of her fingers on his neck, and then the razor sliding upwards. He opens his eyes when he hears her tap the razor against the basin, just his regular boring old Gilette. The sound of metal against porcelain is crisp in the bathroom.

"Be careful," he says, as she turns back towards him. There's a look on her face that he can't decipher, but it's definitely sexy. "There are some arteries there, and they're kind of important."

More of the soapy smell, her palm against his chin. It's almost enough to make him shiver. Another two strokes upward, and then her voice is low, closer to his ear than he thought. "That's deoxygenated blood, right?"

Of course her science is law, history and language. She didn't even take a biology class in undergrad. For all his ferreting-out of motives and secrets, he sees behaviour as a pathogen, a disease with symptoms and signs.

"Yeah," he starts, "Except-" and then she's wiping his face with a washcloth. He didn't even know they _had_ any of those. He's suddenly conscious of how still he is. Just sitting there in the cool bathroom, his feet bare against the tile, the blood in his veins and his hands in loose fists on his knees.

"Stacy," he says, and then he pulls her face down to his. It's so quiet, just one part of a long day in early fall, and later on this will seem like a moment crystallised in time, close enough to touch.

...

 

They're in one of those weird little patches where no matter what you do you can't find a good radio station. It's all the wrong kind of country music, weird backwoods biblical scholarship broadcast by crazies, or city stations smothered in static. But it's warm and sunny, and Crandall is driving.

He feels great. It isn't due to some dramatic confluence of emotions and events, it's just a slow sort of easy-going happiness. They're isolated, out here on the road, and they don't even know if there'll still be a gig on offer when they get there, but he doesn't care.

There are no textbooks in the car, just a dog-eared paperback he holds closed on his finger to mark the place. He lets the book fall to the floor, among a couple of soft-drink cups and a few grease-spotted burger wrappers, hastily dumped during an attack of the munchies.

Crandall's guitar is sitting on the back seat. The black vinyl is peeling away from the wooden case, artfully patched with duct tape. He reaches back and unclips the lid, then lifts the guitar out and forward with a slight thrumming sound.

He takes a pick off the dashboard and starts to play the first thing he remembers. It's just a rough little riff, but then he starts improvising, and Crandall gives his wide boyish grin and bangs the flat of his hand against the steering wheel to add some crude percussion.

He's hunched over in the passenger seat, and Crandall is waggling the car from side to side slightly, saying stuff like "Yeah, G-Man, Yeah!"

He hasn't played guitar for a while, because he's been focusing on the piano, but it's easy to fall back into. He leans back and pays less attention to the picking, just lets it flow. His fingertips sting.

It seems they do that for miles, House with his head back, watching the scenery outside the window, bright and blurred, rushing by like the string of notes, repetition folding back on repetition.

...

 

"Just because you went to school with the new Dean doesn't mean you're not going to antagonise her as soon as humanly possible."

"Wanna bet?" House takes off his sweater and dumps it with his work bag, at the edge of the concrete court. It's fall, and the air is refreshing on his bare arms and legs. It's a good feeling, after being shut up in the stuffy air-conditioning all day. House takes the ball and makes a quick practice shot, bobbing on his toes to work his calf muscles. The rubber is cool in his hands.

Wilson gestures for the ball, and House gives him a nice easy pass. "I don't think I want to put money on this. Exactly _how_ well did you know her in Michigan?" He dribbles and shoots, the treble squeak of rubber on asphalt then a clatter-swoosh.

"Wouldn't you like to know," House says, and then he's intercepting the ball on the rebound, darting around Wilson, stretching up towards the hoop.

Wilson is faster than you'd think. He can surprise you, suddenly accelerating and lunging out of nowhere. So it's a quick game, and rough, just the sort of physical exertion House longed for all day as he sat and fidgeted at his desk.

Later on, after Wilson has patted him on the back and left, he walks home in the twilight, chafing his hands together and breathing the slight woody tang in the air.

His mind is still on the basketball court, almost hypnotised by the syncopated motion. He thinks of Cuddy. _It'll be different this time,_ he tells himself. But, of course, it isn't.

...

 

Months later, Wilson asks if he remembers the time he almost broke his ankle jogging. They were running together in the park, and Wilson tripped leering at a woman wearing tight sweats. It was a close call.

"Of course I remember," House says. There's no way he could forget.

After she packs her things and leaves, he realises that he's lost all the momentum he ever had. He isn't thinking all that clearly because of the extra Vicodin, and after he sloppily pours the whisky into a glass ( _this is too fucking expensive to drink alone_ , he thinks, but goes on pouring) and drinks it and lies gingerly back on the couch, he realises that he can't stop thinking, can't stop remembering.

It won't stop, this silent film strip on the ceiling. He can't help but hear voices he wants to lose to memory, smell things he can't really smell. It's ridiculously real, almost hallucinatory, and it hurts.

He doesn't have a job, Stacy's gone, and Wilson and Cuddy only come around with apprehensive eyes that slide toward the clock instead of looking at him. Wilson brings food, and Cuddy brings medication and guilt. Every time they come near he wants to scream awful things. He wants to tell Cuddy she knows it's her fault, and tell Wilson to go home and screw his way into another divorce, so then he can feel vindicated in being alone.

He can't play piano or read because it makes him feel sick. He hardly eats, because he isn't hungry. The only thing giving dimension to the blank space he's fallen into are the pills he shakes free from the bottle at three-hourly intervals, and the daytime television he can follow even when he's too stoned to talk.

He'll remember this perfectly, even though he doesn't want to. Life for him slowly reverts back to something approximating what it was; it always does. It's the difference between _before_ and _after_ that matters, and for that he has memory. Fragments bouncing around his skull like puzzle pieces, falling into place.


End file.
